Clean Start: July 27, 2011

Welcome to Clean Start, ThinkProgress Green’s morning round-up of the latest in climate and clean energy. Here is what we’re reading. What are you?

On Tuesday, the Timken Company broke ground on a new $11.8 million wind energy center for the research and development of wind-turbine bearings near the Akron-Canton airport in Ohio. [Times-Reporter]

Thin film solar leader First Solar announced it has achieved a new world record for cadmium-telluride photovoltaic solar cell efficiency, reaching 17.3 percent. [First Solar]

A 10-year-old Brooklyn girl who died Saturday became the second victim of a heat wave that blanketed New York City last week, authorities said Tuesday. [WSJ]

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday it would delay issuing, for the fourth time, a final limit on smog pollution opposed by manufacturers and many Republican lawmakers until the Obama administration has finished reviewing it. [Reuters]

The morning low of 86 at 7:53 a.m. Tuesday was the hottest minimum temperature ever recorded by the National Weather Service at its official Dallas-Fort Worth monitoring station. [Dallas Star-Telegram]

“As climate change produces earlier snowmelts, sending too much of the water into reservoirs in the spring and too little in summer,” wealthy farming interests are taking control of the West’s water supply by abusing water banking. [NYT]

The tropical storm Nock-ten has unleashed floods and landslides in the Philippines, killing at least nine people and forcing thousands to flee their homes. [BBC]

Up to 11 million people are starving in East Africa due to the massive drought, which has forced the United Nations to declare the first famine in the region in 25 years. [East African]

A landslide caused by torrential rain crashed into a South Korean mountain resort east of Seoul early on Wednesday, destroying four buildings, including two small hotels, and killing at least 10 people, officials said. [Reuters]

Heavy floods inundated hundreds of houses and crops, as Khabi river breached levee on Saturday in the valley districts Thoubal and Bishnupur in northeastern India. [NTDTV]

Monsoon rains have displaced about 10,000 people in Bangladesh this month, as the Brahmaputra River has swollen past its banks. [DiscoveryNews]